Adults with Autism

What happens when someone with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) leaves school and makes the transition to adult services, college, work, job training, or a new living situation? What does research say about the issues that affect adults with ASD and their families? See the following links for these and other topics.

Beyond High School: The Transition

Coming of Age: Autism and The Transition to Adulthood
The road to adulthood officially begins for many teens when they graduate. But for people with autism, leaving high school is a more monumental step, one that will transform their relationship to services and supports.

Autism and the College Experience
Many students struggle to adjust to the challenges of college: dorms, independence, tough classes and a new social world. But for people with autism, the transition can be more dramatic. How should they prepare?

Finding a College Program for Students with Autism
Regardless of where a student falls on the autism spectrum, whether he was valedictorian or left high school without a diploma, there is a college program for him. But it will take a little research to find the right fit. Here are some resources and tips that can help.

Video on Autism and Skills For Adulthood
In this video, Dr. Peter Gerhardt discusses the adaptive skills that teens and young adults with autism spectrum disorder need to acquire to help them lead safe, productive, and fulfilling adult lives. These skills include safety, hygiene, employment, social competence, decision-making, self-management, leisure, and communication.

Autism in the Teen Years: What to Expect, How to Help
What parent doesn't watch their "tween" become a teen without a twinge of anxiety? Factor autism into the equation, and parents may well wonder how the physical and hormonal changes of adolescence will affect their child on the spectrum. Find out what researchers and experts say about autism during the teen years.

Autism Beyond High School
Unprecedented numbers of young people with ASD will be making the transition to adulthood over the next few years. We briefly explore some of the programs available to those who qualify; the research on the provision of adult services; and efforts to improve the prospects of adults with ASD.

Deciding When to Disclose
High functioning adults who do not show very obvious signs of having an ASD often face a decision: when and if to disclose their ASD at school, work, or in relationships. Read about factors to consider when making disclosure decisions.

Rules of the Road: Driving and ASD
The young person with high-functioning ASD faces all of the same challenges as anyone else getting behind the wheel of a car for the first time. Plus, autism may pose additional challenges, such as attentional difficulties and anxiety. Read about the experiences of drivers and research into how to support their efforts.

Employment and ASD: Preparing for the World of Work
In this video, Ernst VanBergeijk, PhD, MSW, discusses job trends for people with autism, skills that help individuals get and keep jobs, and how employers and co-workers can create an autism-friendly workplace.

A Place of Their Own: Residential Services for Soon-to-Be Adults with Autism
An unprecedented number of families will soon watch their children with autism leave school and flood the adult disability system. These children, the first wave of the so-called "autism epidemic," will enter a disability system already under strain. The influx represents a "looming crisis of unprecedented magnitude," according to one paper. What will happen next?

Adult Employment: Strangers in a Strange Land
Today's 20-somethings with autism often feel like strangers among their own species when they leave the legal protections afforded schoolchildren to enter the adult world of limited support services, long waiting lists, and scant funding. Those who become accomplished sometimes look back on their experiences to reflect on their sense of alienation in a society that doesn't look favorably on those who don't blend in easily. Find out what the researchers have learned about the transition.

Adults with ASD: My Brother's (Sister's) Keeper
The sibling bond typically undergoes major changes during adulthood. Researchers are delving into the possibility that this bond plays a key role in the quality of adult life when one of the siblings has an ASD.

AUTISM in middle age and beyond

Raising Children with Autism, Before the "Epidemic"
What was it like to raise a child with autism decades ago, before most people knew what this "rare" disorder was? Meet two families whose footsteps helped pave the way for the many who would follow them today.

Very Late Diagnosis of Asperger's SyndromeSimon Baron-Cohen and colleagues at the Autism Research Centre discuss those with Asperger's who grew up before the diagnosis existed. They describe a program designed to help diagnose and assist these adults.

Research on adults with autism

What Do We Really Know About Autism and Crime?
News reports have highlighted high-profile crimes allegedly committed by people with autism spectrum disorder in recent years. But media speculation aside, what do we really know about autism and violent crime?

Adults with ASD: The Spectrum
Many children with ASD improve in social and communication behaviors during adolescence and adulthood. Researchers are wondering: What distinguishes these children from those who don't seem to benefit from the same degree of improvement? What can be done to maximize the potential of each individual in the real world?

Behavior Therapy Beyond Childhood
Can teens and adults benefit from behavior therapy? In this article, Tom Frazier and Leslie Sinclair of the Cleveland Clinic bust the myth that intensive behavior therapy works only for young children.

First Look: Data on Adults on the Autism Spectrum
Get a preview of the initial data provided by adults, or their legal representatives, who responded to the IAN Adult with ASD Questionnaire. These data are preliminary, gathered from a small sample of respondents thus far, but perhaps you have some ideas on how to reach more of these adults, who can provide valuable information to advocates, policymakers, and researchers.

The 'C' Word: Common Cause in Spite of Conflicting Perspectives
Connie Anderson, PhD, explores cure as hope, as answer, and as healing...and cure as hurtful condemnation of a different way of being and thinking. However, what may be most useful is not to let the c-word get in the way of what everyone wants: a greatly improved situation for individuals with ASD.

Resources for Adults with ASD

Autism Now has resources and information for individuals with autism, other developmental disabilities, and their families. A national initiative of The Arc.

Autism Speaks Transition Tool Kit provides information about the transition to adulthood for individuals with ASD. In addition to the development of self-advocacy skills, the kit covers the topics of community life, housing, health, sexuality, internet safety, employment, and post-secondary educational opportunities.

A Guide for Transition to Adulthood, which is part of the Life Journey Through Autism series by the Organization for Autism Research (OAR), is a comprehensive resource to aid in transition planning for individuals with ASD.

Understanding Asperger Syndrome: A Professor's Guide is a video produced by the Organization for Autism Research (OAR) that focuses on educating professors, teaching assistants, and others on what it means to be a college student on the spectrum and how they might best be able to help them succeed.